Chapter 42

Sophia melted into the couch, numb to the bone. Lucas and Emily’s voices washed over her like static. It was distant, warped, the sound one could hear when three seconds from drowning.

It was the kind of nightmare where the set pieces bend, crack, then implode. The dream floor had given out. She was free- falling through ink–black air.

“Mrs. Westwood? Mrs. Westwood!” The urgent voice cut through her haze. Sophia’s eyelids fluttered weakly. Everything was

in darkness.

She pried her lids open, then light stabbed in. Knifing pain. Her skull felt split like a melon, her mouth full of sand, her body toggling between sauna and ice bath. Every muscle screamed traitor.

Rachel’s face popped into view. “Mr. Westwood, she’s awake!”

Rachel’s footsteps faded as she rushed off, quickly replaced by hurried footsteps growing louder.

A second later, Sophia was yanked against a hard chest. Lucas’s arms were like a steel cage. “Sophie, Jesus, three days. You scared the hell out of me.”

That familiar baritone vibrated through her ribs and detonated a flash–bang in her brain: Samantha, Lucas, Emily, and IVF.

Every fiber of her being recoiled at Lucas’s proximity. Even in her weakened state, she pushed against him. A bitter part of her was almost grateful for those three days of oblivion. At least she hadn’t had to endure his nauseating hypocrisy.

Lucas’s jaw locked. “Really? First thing you do when you open your eyes is push me away?”

She quit wasting calories on him, but her stomach pitched a protest. “Ugh-” She twisted, dry–heaving over the pillow.

His glare soured, yet the sight of her, eyes watering, body curled like a kicked puppy, softened something in him. “Want some water?”

Rachel materialized with a glass. Lucas took it, tipped it to Sophia’s lips. “Small sips. You’ve been cooking at a hundred and four for seventy–two hours straight.”

Sophia closed her eyes for a beat, then reluctantly took a few sips.

Her compliance seemed to placate him. He turned and instructed Rachel to bring some warm milk. After Rachel left, a heavy silence descended upon the bedroom.

He watched Sophia’s profile, her eyes shut tight, every inch screaming aversion. The rejection chewed at him.

“I bailed on the company for three days, parked right here while you burned up. And your way to express your gratitude is a cold shoulder? You think I owe you groveling?”

The second it left his mouth, he wanted to yank it back.

Sophia’s lids snapped open. Arctic air rolled out. “I didn’t ask for the bedside vigil, Mr. Westwood. Let’s skip the fairy tale. You were afraid your favorite incubator might flat–line before you and your lover could collect the finished product.”

His nostrils flared, pride stung, but he didn’t deny the math. “Crude, even for you. If your body just did its job the old- fashioned way, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits, voice a low blade. “Lucas, what if I told you I’m pregnant right now? Do I finally get my walking

papers?”

1/3

Lucas went still. For a split second, something lit up in the depths of his eyes, a spark of shock, maybe hope, but it died just as fast, snuffed by a memory she couldn’t see.

“The docs said you don’t ovulate. So how, Sophia? Are you playing games with me?”

Besides, if there’d really been a plus sign, the family doctor treating her 104–degree fever would’ve announced it like a touchdown. He thought, ‘She is just scrambling for any excuse to dodge the IVF assembly line.

A cracked laugh clawed its way up her throat. Raw, ugly, the sound of something broken rattling around inside her.

She’d gambled on the wrong bluff. A man who could hit delete on his own conscience didn’t deserve to be a father.

“Stop!” Lucas barked, the laugh clearly crawling under his skin. “What’s so damn terrible about carrying my kid? Emily stabbed herself with hormones for weeks and never whined. Why are you so damn difficult?”

Sophia’s smirk could’ve sliced glass. “If Emily’s your dream incubator, go romance her between the sheets. She’s ‘delicate, not barren. One night of fun and boom, organic, home–grown heir. Or are you scared she’ll break?”

“Don’t you dare put that evil on her!” Fury detonated. His palm connected before his brain could vote.

The force sent Sophia tumbling back onto the bed. Stars exploded behind her eyes. The ceiling spun like a carnival ride.

Seeing her crumpled, motionless, Lucas’s adrenaline flat–lined into cold dread. He scooped her up, voice cracking. “Sophie… hell, I–I didn’t mean-” A bead of blood bloomed at the corner of her mouth, bright against guilt.

“Out.” She didn’t blink, just jabbed a shaking finger at the door. Tears streaked parallel lines down swollen skin. “I’m begging you, Lucas… go.”

The red handprint rising on her cheek was a brand mark on his conscience. Three days of bedside vigils, wiped out in one slap. His molars ground so hard she probably heard it across the room.

He thought darkly, ‘This is her fault. If she’d just say yes to the damn IVF, we’d be picking nursery colors instead of bleeding out in a bedroom warzone.‘

He spun away, door shuddering in its frame as he slammed it hard enough to rattle the art on the walls.

Sophia curled into a comma, coughs racking her ribs. One palm pressed to her lower belly like she could mute the heartbeat inside.

She had never hated anything the way she hated this cluster of cells stitched together with Lucas’s DNA. The urge to carve it out scorched through her veins.

She mused, ‘I offered him a clean break. He’s the one who turned it into scorched earth. Content orıginally comes from FindNovel(.)net

Footsteps tiptoed back in. Rachel froze, milk sloshing over the rim of the cup. “Mrs. Westwood… He hit you? You just woke up!”

Sophia sagged against the headboard, cheek on fire, soul ash. “Rachel, I’m starving.”

Rachel swallowed the lecture she wasn’t paid to give. “Warm milk first, then I’ll scramble you some eggs.”

Rachel eased the last spoonful between Sophia’s lips, then dabbed the corner like she was feeding a broken doll. A tear slipped off Rachel’s chin and splattered across Sophia’s knuckles.

“I’ll grab you an ice pack, Ma’am.” Rachel scooped the empty cup and bolted before the sob could escape.

Alone again, Sophia leaned back and shut her eyes, swallowed by a fatigue that went deeper than bone. If only she could

2/3

sleep and wake up ten years in the future, a world away from the Westwood name and free of Lucas forever.

The door creaked open. Assuming it was Rachel returning, Sophia didn’t bother to look.

But the voice that hissed in her ear was dripping with venom. “Sophia, you really should take better care of yourself. Surrogates with a fever don’t make premium babies.”

admin